This invention relates to fire tube boilers employing fluidized bed combustion.
Boilers employing fluidized bed combustion have been the subject of experimentation and development in recent years by several institutes including corporations and governmental agencies, both in the U.S. and abroad. Fluidized bed combustion offers significant potential in fuel savings, and in pollution control, especially of sulfur compounds. It would be desirable to have fluidized bed combustion available for boilers where lesser amounts of steam generation are required, such as at schools, factories, commercial buildings and the like. Such institutions usually have limited funds so that elaborate pollution controls are impractical and fuel usage should be optimized.
However, boilers by their nature are typically complex, requiring costly on-site assembly. If the on-site assembly involved fluidized bed combustion, the cost and problems could be prohibitive. What has been needed is a packaged fire tube boiler employing fluid bed combustion, factory assembled and pre-tested, and capable of employing any of multiple fuels available, even solid fuels such as coal or wood, enabling smaller users to have such installed, as a unit, to allow minimal installation costs, capacity to burn solid fuels, and resulting minimal pollution.